Speeches

8 July 2026Strasbourg, Villa OppenheimerMerci Monsieur l’Ambassadeur de France, cher Pap Ndiaye, de nous réunir ici ce soir pour célébrer le 14 juillet — une date ô combien symbolique pour toutes celles et tous ceux qui chérissent la liberté. Cette liberté qui comme l’écrivait Albert Camus est la « seule valeur impérissable de l’histoire. » L’histoire, justement. Peu de pays en ont autant donné à la liberté que la France. Et peu de dates en disent autant que ce 14 juillet 1789. Alors ce soir, permettez-moi un raccourci : imaginons…

29 June 2026StrasbourgIt is a pleasure to join you for this exchange of views. I have been looking forward to it. Policy planners are the first to confront what the rest of us have yet to face. That is what foresight is. And that makes this group the right place to ask: are we deciding Europe’s future, or letting others decide it for us? *** That future, or should I say futures, is where I would like to begin our conversation today.

19 June 2026StrasbourgWhat a week. Packed rooms. Hundreds of participants. From all 46 member states, and beyond. Hacking sessions. Giuliano da Empoli on power and technology. A panel on the ethical dilemmas of innovation. The International Day for Countering Hate Speech. A debate on hate speech as the biggest threat to democracy. Gilles Marchand on cultural sovereignty. The Journalism Excellence Awards.

18 June 2026StrasbourgGood morning, everyone. It is good to see so many of you here again after the launch of the hackathon yesterday. I know you have been busy. I am grateful to see you back in the Hemicycle. I suspect some of you saw “speech by the Secretary General” on the programme and thought: finally, a few minutes of rest. Not quite. Because rest is exactly what those who spread hate, online and offline, hope we will do.

18 June 2026StrasbourgThank you. It is great to be here. The First World Romani Congress met more than fifty years ago. One of the people who helped bring it to life remembered. A people’s history is not safe just because it happened. Someone has to ask before the last witness is gone. There is racism in Britain that people still say out loud, in the open, without lowering their voice.

17 June 2026StrasbourgWelcome to this celebration of 70 years of the Council of Europe Development Bank. The CEB is no ordinary bank. It is the only multilateral development bank in the world with an exclusively social mandate. A bank that has focused on supporting people, since its very inception. Like the Council of Europe, the CEB grew from the ashes of the Second World War.

17 June 2026StrasbourgWe gather shortly after your National Day, but some anniversaries are worth honouring beyond the date itself, and Georgia’s is one of them. We will raise a glass to it shortly. A fitting moment to remember that Georgians have been making wine for eight thousand years. Some things you do not need a treaty to belong to. *** More seriously, one hundred and eight years ago, the Democratic Republic of Georgia was among the very first social democracies in Europe.

17 June 2026StrasbourgGood afternoon, everyone. And welcome to the Council of Europe. Today we open No Hate Speech Week, and the second edition of our Democracy Hackathon. For the next three days, this is your home. Make yourself comfortable in these premises. I know you are going to be busy. But I hope you also take a moment to look around. Most of the great things this organisation has done began exactly like this. In a room, with people who were told it could not be done.

16 June 2026StrasbourgIt was just six months ago that Ministers of Justice from across our 46 member states gathered here in this room for another informal ministerial conference. That is not a coincidence. It shows how far justice has moved to the centre of Europe’s security agenda. *** The focus then was migration and the European Convention on Human Rights. Few debates are more divisive, or more visible.

16 June 2026StrasbourgOh, and good morning, bonjour, guten tag! Welcome to the Open Innovation Dialogue Hub. *** It is estimated that more than 4 million people in Europe speak Romani. More than 2 million speak Galician. And more than 1 million speak Limburgish. These are just three of the 84 languages protected by the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Languages spoken by more than 200 communities across Europe.